HAVERFORD, Pa. - The Salisbury University volleyball season came to a close Thursday in Haverford, Pa., as the Sea Gulls fell in straight sets, 3-0, to Christopher Newport University in the 2007 NCAA tournament first round. Both the fifth-seed Sea Gulls and fourth-seed Captains entered the Mid-Atlantic regional match looking for their schools' first NCAA tournament victory.

The Sea Gulls (28-11), Capital Athletic Conference champions, made their first NCAA tournament appearance since 2004 and their fourth in school history. The Gulls' 28 wins is a new season-high for SU coach Margie Knight in her 11 seasons at SU.

Salisbury led set one, 17-14, but allowed the Captains (33-6) to score 10 straight points to leap ahead of the Gulls, 24-17. SU failed to bounce back and dropped the first set 30-22. There were five ties, and three lead changes in set two that ultimately went CNU's way, 30-18. The Sea Gulls dropped the final set of its season by the same margin, 30-18.

SU offensive leaders included junior Stacey Krebs (six kills), sophomore Nicole Massarelli (seven kills) and sophomore Rachel Downes (six kills). Sophomore libero Gabby Long led the Sea Gulls with 20 digs to go along with 18 assists by junior Jaime Marzocchi.

The Gulls committed an unusual amount of errors on its offensive attack amassing an equal number of kills and attack errors (22). The Captains, however, had 53 kills in the match and only 18 errors.

Despite the loss it was still a fantastic season for the Sea Gulls as they saw several school records fall. Krebs, the CAC Player of the Year, finished the '07 campaign with the new single-season school records for attack attempts (1,513, a difference of 190 more than the old record) and kills (559, 90 more than the old record). Krebs is now the school career leader with a 3.72 kills per game average. She is now third all-time in school history with 1,334 career kills in three seasons.

In her first season as setter Marzocchi broke the all-time single-season school assist record with 1,485. She also set the single-season school record with 10.92 assists per game. Marzocchi is currently fourth all-time in school history with 1,498 career assists.

First team All-CAC honoree Long set the single-season digs school record with 775 and most digs per game average at 5.66.

CNU has not lost a set in its last 12 matches (36-0). The Captains have won 76 of its last 79 sets, including two earlier 3-0 victories over the Sea Gulls this season. The Captains advance to the regional semifinals where they will face Juniata College, the defending national champions.